Postgame Quotes - February 12, 2012

Pistons vs Wizards

(On the Wizards 18-2 Run): "Now, they have a 15-2 run to close it and a 13-2 run to start the fourth, I think it went 5-for-30, once we took that lead that was the (our) good point. Look, from the beginning of the game we didn't have that same sort of effort or intensity that we had in some of these prior games and we talked about Washington as a capable team despite their record. So, you look at even the first half when it was tied, it was a little bit of fool's gold. That second quarter we had some good possessions, but we just didn't put the same amount of intensity into the game that we did in the prior games. (John) Wall, and (Nick) Young in the third quarter obviously changed it, but the MVP of the game was JaVale McGee. Now he had eight dunks, but even though he had one or two blocked shots, but he impacted the game on the defensive end, technically at some point I think we were 8-for-26 in the paint maybe more, but he impacted the game tremendously. You have to give him a lot of credit. Between turnovers, inability to get stops, protect our paint and make shots, we got what we deserved tonight."

(On JaVale McGee's presence in the game and the affect on Piston's performance through intimidation): "That's just what he does, he is the number one shot blocker in the league, so you know that coming in, obviously he is not a new player but yet at the same time there are other facets to it, but you got to give him credit."

(On lack of energy): “It was clear it wasn’t there tonight, not really sure why. It’s the NBA we have to come ready to play every night regardless of what the excuse may be, we have to find a way to mix it up and get our energy out there.”

(On JaVale McGee and John Wall): “He (McGee) had a great effect; he finished a lot of lob passes around the rim. I thought it was really more John Wall by getting into the paint continuously and looking for his guys, especially on lob passes. We pretty much had no answer for that all night.”

(On shooting): “I don’t really know if it was our shot selection, I think it was just a matter of not converting on shots we normally make. We didn’t get enough transition points, we didn’t allow our offense to create defense like we have been doing previously. Nights like this you really have to rely on defense to get yourself going when shots aren’t falling.”

(On what was missing tonight): “It was evident. I thought it the first half, we kind of hung around, but you could tell the energy and that spark wasn’t there. John Wall pretty much took over the game in the second half when he started continuously driving the lane, getting a couple baskets and continuing to find guys around the hoop.”

(On game): “This is a momentum builder for us, hopefully. I thought the first half we had periods of good play. I think we got up twice and maybe even three times by eight. Again, we just turned the ball over. Unforced turnovers that put them back in the game at 45-all at halftime. I told our guys we should be leading, but we’re not. It’s times that we talked about at the start of the game. It’s going to turn out to be an energy game and whoever won the rebounding I thought was going to be big and was going to have a chance to win and we ended up doing that.”

(On not blowing the lead): “We didn’t do that. My head went down that first half especially. John (Wall) didn’t put his head down and sometimes he has the nature of doing that. Nick (Young) has a nature of doing that and we didn’t. Is it a growing up process? Yeah, we talked about the steps we have to make and that’s one of them that you play through mistakes. The games a long game, 48 minutes.”

(On team performance): “We came out with that enthusiasm. John (Wall) kept with it and got us going, pushing the ball and just knocked down shots today and we played aggressive and won.”

(On second-half explosion): “That’s big. We stayed with it and never folded and that’s something you got to learn from. You got to learn from things like tonight. How hard we played and how we never got down on our self.”

(On controlling the game): “We came out with that mindset that we need to get one. We need to start this road trip off with a positive. We got some heavy hitters coming up here.”

(On first win at The Palace in five years): “I was thinking it was kind of hard playing here and it’s big for me to finally get over that hump too.”

(On reaching 15,000 career points): “It feels good. I’m definitely happy and excited about it. I’ve had a pretty successful career. Not a lot of people can be on the list. Sam Cassell told me I just passed him up. If anything it’s most definitely an h